Busted Knees & Pretty Trees Podcast
Welcome to Busted Knees and Pretty Trees, the podcast where the trail dust never settles! Hosted by Travy J, Brad, and Paddy – three outdoorsmen with a passion for all things wild – we dive deep into the world of nature, backcountry adventure, and wilderness living.
Whether you're a seasoned hiker, curious birder, backcountry hunter, weekend canoe tripper, or just someone who finds peace under an open sky, this podcast is your campfire conversation. Each season, we talk gear, share stories, swap survival tips, and celebrate the beauty and challenges of spending time in the great outdoors.
We also sit down with fascinating guests from all walks of life – conservationists, wildlife experts, guides, and everyday folks who have chosen to make nature a central part of their lives. Together, we explore how they connect with the wild and what they're doing to protect it for future generations.
If you love the crunch of leaves underfoot, the call of a loon at dawn, or the satisfaction of sore legs after a long day on the trail, then you're in the right place.
Busted Knees and Pretty Trees – where passion for the wild runs deep, and the stories are as real as the wilderness.
Available on all major platforms. Subscribe now and join us on the trail.
Busted Knees & Pretty Trees Podcast
Ep. 84 - Migration Season Unpacked: B.W.I.A.B, Indiana Dunes and More!
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Spring migration is here! Join Bradley and Paddy as they dive deep into the spectacle of migrating birds, break down the excitement around BWIAB, and preview everything happening at the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival. From warbler fallout to birding strategy, this episode is packed with stories, insights, and plenty of spring birding energy. Tune in now!
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Hello, this is Busted Knees and Pretty Trees. We appreciate you coming along. It's a great time to be outside, folks. Yes, I know. It can be difficult to find time. We're all very busy. I've heard it all before. Mostly in high school, from girls I asked to hang out with. I can't imagine the regret they must feel to this day. Especially now that I'm a podcaster. Real popular with the ladies here. Let that be a lesson. You don't want to miss out. We can find some time. Without playing, we could all cut some unproductive screen time. To you trail bosses who done been out there, we salute you. Stay hydrated and carry on, you sauntering savages. Yeah. And you know, we'd love to hear about what you're exploring, what you've discovered, and if you have a tantalizing tale of terror on the trail, we'd love for you to share it. Bustedpretty.com. And I think the other ones are busted. I was looking at our Instagram, and it is literally spelled out at busted knees and pretty trees.com.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, busted knees and pretty trees on Instagram. Busted pretty at blue sky. Busted pretty busted knees and pretty trees on threads and busted pretty on uh TikTok. TikTok.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Oh, we're oh we're talkers. Well shit, you know what? You can even go ahead and DM me those cool stories. Travy at Travy J Dub on the IG. And then we even got uh Bradley Greer over there with his photography, his good nature photography. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03BR Greer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's just at Br Greer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00These old dudes hit the socials hard the last year.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_03You know, Patty, some people have been on it since you know the early 20 teens. Yeah, some of us have already given up on it and realized some of us the timing. Yeah, we've given up head cut back.
SPEAKER_00I gave up on it shortly after Facebook was invented. We were still a college thing. We were on MySpace. I was a Tom guy. Tom was my best friend. Your only friend? Probably, dude. Yeah. Nobody could actually get my MySpace paid to load. It was so edited with the backgrounds and all the each card. Everything had a different sound effect. It was dude. Yeah, it's like emo rock song clan. Yeah, it was Blink182 or something.
SPEAKER_02That's like the only time you would love it is when the internet was in the wild, wild west period. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, let's keep her going. This week we're gonna go over what the warbler stock 2026 hippies have been up to the last couple of weeks. Much to grow.
SPEAKER_03That's a that's what they should call it. Warbler stock. They do. They do? Yes. Oh.
SPEAKER_01Damn. Damn. I know a little bit of something about the world's biggest bird, burden stock. Biggest week.
SPEAKER_00This is this is a this is a weird start. Broken up, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, we have much to go through. Plus, we got a one-on-one exclusive with Patrick himself and his about all about his change of tune after recently visiting a national park. Yes, that is for sure. My name is Travis White, and of course, my fellow associates, Bradley Greer and Patty Richardson. Hello. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00You guys are for us talk for coming on. Yeah. We're just goddamn excited. Brad and I are over here like chomping at the witsy bitsies. Ooh. Keep going, Travis. Don't let me mess you up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I know there's more. I don't want to prematurely uh calling wall.
SPEAKER_02Who I'm well, this is our our big uh spring. I I feel like this is probably gonna be an annual thing, the way that you guys kind of geared up. And it I and just I was watching it from the sidelines go down. Chad got involved, Jabin got involved, and I guess there was an older gentleman that uh he's an older burder that's a grumpy type fella. Joe. But Bradley from the Bust and Eastern Pretty Trees program really livened him up. He's not he's not a grumpy in the fields.
SPEAKER_03Where'd you get that from?
SPEAKER_00You you and Chad? Yeah, kinda. That was his MO that Chad said in our group chat that would this is a grumpy. Well, what if he listens to this? Well, hey, he wasn't grumpy while you were there. I'm sure if he's a grumpy gus, he knows he's a grumpy gus. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's official because I think Brad and I agree that this will be an annual thing that I'll have to go through. Uh the birding festival.
SPEAKER_03Dude, absolutely and the pre and post the lead up and the hangover.
SPEAKER_02Man, no doubt about it. I think the lead up's been about three months.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Well, it's super fun.
SPEAKER_03I mean, in any other, you know, after when we had the New Year's Eve party and the ball dropped to be petty like, oh boy, Birding Festival.
SPEAKER_01Here comes BW26, baby.
SPEAKER_00Dude, from the moment we left the Birding Festival last year on our way down to trail days, uh, we were we were already talking about how we wanted to get back here, dude. We had it is a fantastic time. It's family friendly, it's accessible to everyone. It is, I mean, I I know, trust me, my 16-year-old self would be rolling his eyes at me right now.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I'm telling you that there is something just like heartwarmingly fun about these festivals. It's no pressure. Get up, get out, walk, hike, chat with your friends or family. It's nothing's a good time.
SPEAKER_03If nothing else, it's a beautiful area, and you're discovering all kinds of new parks, nature preserves, wildlife. There's so much like that between Toledo and Cleveland, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's like all wildlife nature preserve.
SPEAKER_03We'll get into it.
SPEAKER_00We'll get into it because I don't want to hit a couple of my topics that I I have. But um, Travy, you will not be disappointed. It is it is a very good time.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no. I know, and I I wanted to mention it just because um this is kind of our really the first established time that you you know you guys have been pretty big into birding and everything. And as you went out there, of course, just there's bird pictures coming down the feed, all the stuff you guys are doing. And it got me stoked. And what's what's nice is I mean, it's not that far away where you guys went, so we're pretty much in the same reason where uh region where all these birds migrate. Yep. And just like I mentioned last episode, like these new birds coming in made me clean my windows so I could look out back and see them a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Let the Ben see through them a little better.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, I had to clean those too. He even had even cleaned his vehicles, dude.
SPEAKER_00Cool.
SPEAKER_02I go I want to make sure I know what the hell I'm looking at.
SPEAKER_00I got my two nephews out this migration. I got my sister-in-law was out uh uh this migration. I've gotten texts and phone calls from family members that were out walking around, and a great majority of those people found out about it because of this podcast. So, I mean, in honor of what we try to do on a weekly basis, we did it this migration. We got quite a few people out there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my mom sent me a picture of a mockingbird. Oh, yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like that's awesome. Like he said that, and I even I I think I even I asked Chad, like, Chad, like that's pretty crazy, right?
SPEAKER_00Big brick rolling around in your kayak. Nope, not that hey, there he is, dude. Episode 84, you guys. This is the 82nd or 81st News Panther. Oh, nice. Jumping Jahoosie snoots, dude. We've done them that like I'm on my way through all of the episodes right now. And ironically, right now I'm on the tantalizing uh terror trail, whatever. Uh I'm on that episode, and I believe that's the first is the one I was on. 2025. Uh that was an episode. Uh your news panther was about the Bark Ranger dressing up as a bat girl. Oh man. And then your other story was about the uh trail runner that went to North Carolina or something and got lost and he was found naked, and he didn't.
SPEAKER_03Remember, we kept calling back to that guy forever, too. Bob Shock, right? Yeah, Bob Shock. This was it was out west. Oh, yeah. But he was from North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00It was definitely Bob Shock. He found him naked. Yeah, remember he he was he was like, oh man, I wonder why this trail's gone or whatever. And he ate a mushroom for the whole week. One mushroom, he said. Yeah, dude. I'm I'm I'm getting all these because our hundredth episode celebrations coming up, and I got something really fun planned for us for that episode. So I'm trying to go back and listen to all 80 some uh episodes of our podcast and take notes and little fun things. So we're gonna be able to do it.
SPEAKER_02In the arms of an angel slideshow, you get pretty much.
SPEAKER_00No, but if I were to do a documentary, it would just be a slideshow, dude. That's great. In the arms of an angel. Hey, before we get too far into shitting on me again, let's uh get into this uh 84th news panther.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, and speaking of, we're dipping back into a well that we've dipped in quite a few times. Got our got our toes dipped in. Ooh. It's a little dangerous dipping your toes in here, but okay, okay. So we're taking the Busted Pretty Van. Taking it back down to Southern Florida.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, all right. Is that also official? Yeah, it is. That's our thing. That's how we travel, bro.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Why wouldn't we? I didn't know if it was a bus or we spent a lot of money on it. Well, it's like a VW van bus. It's a magic school, whatever we want it to be. That makes sense. And now Jabin's the co-pilot. Yes, yeah. He's the one that takes it. He was the key. We're going back to visit the Burmese python, the invasive snake taking over the Florida ecosystems and destroying it. This isn't a story about how they're destroying it or like what wrong they're doing anymore. This is about a discovery that happened in the Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area during a python tracking that's part of an ongoing University of Florida radio telemetry program using scout snakes. Jumping Christ. Yeah, that was a mouthful. That was an earful. I can't believe I didn't run out of breath. Could you put that in three words or less?
SPEAKER_00Could you um do the letters of either?
SPEAKER_03So some scientists discovered snake science. The scientists discovered something while checking out Python Nest that they I like, I this I stuck my head down this rabbit hole because they said um University of Florida's radio telemetry program using scout snakes. Damn. So I had to Google that, right? Duh. It's a study going on, but it's a bunch of organizations are involved in it. Specifically University of Florida. So what they're doing is when they capture males or females, uh Burmese pythons, they put radio collars on them. And the way pythons mate is there's like one female and a ton of males around. So they kind of can find these hot spots of where this is happening, and then that's and then where the nest is. Because uh female Burmese python can lay up to a hundred eggs. Whoa. So if they can find these little hot spots, they can just go kill, like take all the eggs and and that they won't be born.
SPEAKER_02Yes, you know, thank you. They just go take them?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Or or they study it toss a grenade and they try to learn more of the behavior of like what's going on with their mating patterns. Um, they like so they don't always just go take them on. That's interesting. What's weird?
SPEAKER_00You know what I mean? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, and there's been a couple things that I've come across. There like in Hawaii, they did this thing where there were goats. It was one of the Hawaiian Islands, and I think I heard this on a radio lab or something. There was a Hawaiian island where goats were overrunning it and just eating all the vegetation across the countryside. Like it was one of the kind of remote, um, not very established or um mod like what do you call it? Developed islands. Goats are always fucking around. Well, and it was from sailors, I guess, would drop goats off on their way to somewhere. Then on their way back, they would come back we know I'm gonna eat that goat now. Well they did that with what?
SPEAKER_02Chickens, pigs, and everything else.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So to get rid of these goats, they they trapped one and they gave us some kind of like drug or something that made it always in heat, and then they put a radio collar on it. And so this goat would just go back out in the aisle and attract all the males. They're so like very social animals, so they're all like all together, and then so she's in heat, attract all the males, then they would fly over with helicopters and just shoot all the goats. Jesus. It was called the Judas goat, because like they were bringing all the like she was the goat of death, basically. But now that it's under control, they got rid of all the goats. Many, many a men have been killed that way. Oh man, just a classic love story, man. Yeah, so that's what that made me think of that. Like, well, that's kind of what they're doing. And but now, like, one of the the theories of predator management is not just like because you think like coyotes. I think in Indiana, there's open take on coyotes, like you can shoot them, they're pretty unlimited the time. Yeah, like it's pretty open. Really? And but that's where like biologists that are studying predator control, like that's not what they say. They're like, you want to get them before they mate, like that's the prime time because you just want to stop them from propagating. If you're shooting them after they already had a litter, you're not really helping, you're just shooting it, and now there's an the next generation's already out there.
SPEAKER_02Right, you're basically just killing the old people.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so it's like all it seems like it's coming to where it's all about targeting, like, don't even let them reproduce. Like, try to get them, like focus all your time and energy on that before they reproduce. And so that's what these scientists produce in common.
SPEAKER_00Just to be clear here that to this is an invasive, yeah, very invasive species.
SPEAKER_03Killing a lot of local indigenous wildlife and and fauna, causing a lot of issues, wreaking havoc, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so when the scientists go out to check this egg, they they they like arrive at the python's nest, and it seems like some of these nests they kind of know where they are, and they just keep visiting them and monitoring them. So when they arrive at the nest, they noticed at least four. Well, can you guys guess? There's so there's a new predator that's like uh causing damage to taking eggs from the Burmese python.
SPEAKER_02Didn't somebody s talk about chameleons just recently? Yeah, Jabin probably saw that. I don't know if they but like eggs though. No. It's another invasive species.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I will say it's a it's very on par with this week. It is a bird. Yeah, I was gonna it's uh what what what what kind of bird? So when they walk up, they notice four vultures circling the nest. Wozers. And they act and they saw some actively feeding on python eggs.
SPEAKER_02Where are these vultures from?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. But I mean, probably North America.
SPEAKER_02I thought you said they were invasive.
SPEAKER_03Well, no, the vultures aren't invasive, the pythons are.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's a uh that's a different feed feeding technique for a vulture.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. They're carry ons, so they're normally feeding on dead things. That seems like easy peasy, lemon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but that's just not generally what you would think of a vulture doing is having they're carry ons. Normally they eat off off carcasses and dead things. They're scavengers.
SPEAKER_02Adaptation. I know. Yeah, and it's like now things does that count as scavenging eggs? When I think that's one of those things.
SPEAKER_03I mean, like that's one of the things they're like hoping for now is that the vultures are targeting, like if they can somehow get that scent and their genetics and that's something that they hunt for. Oh, so they want that. I think like I don't think they want them to become fully dependent on them. Right. To where that's all they eat, because then eventually if they are gone, that's they're kind of screwed. But I mean, they're definitely cool with it. Like they they don't mind it. I have a question.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. Do you think that we relate scavengers to roadkill because that's the only time we ever see them because there's an extravagantly higher amount of dead animals on the side of roads? I don't think I do in in like just random nature. Sure, I see uh you know, you see them floating around over random fields but you don't ever see them actually on the ground as much.
SPEAKER_00But the newspanthers talk before about how like crows and vultures will alert that's what bears will listen for or watch for. Yeah. And then they know that there's something there to go scavenge off of. Right, yeah. So I no, I think they're scavenger species or carry-on species for a reason.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Not just roadkill.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, not just roadkill.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02I'm think well, I was thinking like they they probably have a lot more ways of food than just on the side of the rest.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because like bald eagles don't only eat fish. Right. Yeah, yeah, and they're carry-ons, so they scavenge as well.
SPEAKER_02So, yeah, if you can take advantage of like free invasive rich nutrients, darn right.
SPEAKER_03That's good. They documented at least 17 eggs, but three of them were fully outside of the nest, and 14 of them were still still inside the nest, but they were like cracked up and every like everything was exposed or gone and just like crumbled to eggshells. Uh the researchers did further inspection around the area of the nest, and they found no signs of other possible predators or scavengers besides the vault. Like the vultures were the only thing they saw, like footprints or anything. But they did say it was kind of crazy, the female was they said like 12 meters from the nest. That's pretty close. Like just like sitting in the water, like 12 meters from the nest where the where that they were at, like doing all this, like recording all this stuff that they're seeing.
SPEAKER_00All of this just gives me the E B. Yeah, for real.
SPEAKER_02Do you like what's the relationship between the vultures and say that mother python? I don't know. Like it's they're like a prey uh I don't know.
SPEAKER_03She like a big python could probably eat a vulture, I would think. No doubt.
SPEAKER_02I imagine it'd be difficult to catch, though.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I could see him being skidded. I don't know. It's hard. I'm sure I'm I guarantee uh guarantee. They're pretty good at avoiding cars that are coming their way at 70 miles away. But pythons are super quiet. I don't know. That's a good that's a good Google search right there. I'm sure they have.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But they also noted that there they also noted that there were punctures in the eggs that are consistent with marks made by bird beaks. This discovery was back in 2023, but it was just recently published in a journal. And the like I think even the same group of scientists are still going out and checking on nests. So now this is like a new thing they're specifically looking out for to see if if they find any more with vultures, like obvious signs of vultures eating the eggs.
SPEAKER_02And that makes me curious, like what other animals are taking advantage of these nests? Apparently, not many.
SPEAKER_03And are they these net are they just like slightly above like water level like Well, they are under brush, so they did like note that the vultures must have like removed the layer of brush around the nest. Like get it all getting it all exposing, so they must have smelled it or something. So they can't necessarily if there has to be like one cracked egg and the vultures smell it. It's kind of curious, yeah. Like what makes them catch it?
SPEAKER_02Or when it like the first one hatches and just completely screws the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's funny, like like you asked Travis, this so this does add to a growing list of predators that prey on pythons or like learning how to prey on python pythons. Cotton mouth snakes are one, which are also known as water moccasins. I never knew that was the same thing. I didn't either snake on snake. Found juvenile pythons, Burmese pythons, in the s in the stomachs of cotton mouse. Bobcats have been seen removing eggs from nest, even like with massive pythons confronting it and like biting at it. The bobcat does not give a shit. All he has to do is like pounce. Anything. And the last predator of pythons, we have Taylor Stanberry, the winner of the Florida Python Challenge, who removed 60 of them in 2025 and won the championship.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03We covered her in a previous story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we did. I'm gonna go ahead and give that a tie. Yeah, Taylor Stanberry.
SPEAKER_03She killed it. She killed the game.
SPEAKER_00Her Instagram is insane. Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_03And that was like a couple days. Like that was 60 pythons. Yeah. Like in a short time span. Her tight line is made out of pythons. So I think unless they like ruin a whole nest of 100 eggs, like she's no other animals can keep up with Taylor. Can we get her on the podcast? Oh man, that'd be cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. She, I not her, but somebody else reached out to us a few uh a few months ago looking for an interview, so maybe so. We can get a Florida python Wrangler out there. That'd be awesome. God, this whole story just gives me the EBs. I cannot help it, but like alligators eating snakes, snakes jumping at bobcats. Like I just picture this python and super smelly swamp, and they're just some of the photos. Oh my god, dude.
SPEAKER_03The U of F has a lot of photos and stuff on their like it's a cool, and even some of this marshland that they're walking through, the swamp grass or whatever it's called, is like feet over their head. That's fucking. And they're just like part pushing their way through it. Jesus Christ. And they're like in muck boots because they're on their knees and I want to do that.
SPEAKER_00With the I do understand that the python isn't jumping at you, biting you. Okay. It's going to be a slow death because I believe pythons will like wrap around you and strangle you before you die.
SPEAKER_02Uh but like in my mind.
SPEAKER_00In my mind, I'm picturing like you and your friend John Voigt like in the stomach of an Anaconda while it's swimming. You remember that scene in Anaconda? Like, that's what's in my mind. I'm telling you, my skin is crawling right now.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I know that that movie was not dramatized at all.
SPEAKER_00And I did every second of it. Well, it's a documentary.
SPEAKER_02And I think I've probably watched it a dozen times. So I but I, yeah, I think uh, yeah, I would like to do something like that. And between Brad bringing this story back up and Jabin talking about being in the Everglades, that really wasn't on my radar. There's certainly a possibility. Now I'm kind of getting a little interested about it.
SPEAKER_00I was going to go if Jabin Chaperones the field trip. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And you wear one of the hats with the propeller on top.
SPEAKER_00Somebody gives me muck boots. Oh, thank God. I'm so happy to be out of that story. Just in time. Oh man, dude. I mean, I I'm like over here, like, oh you know when you get bit by one mosquito and now you're just feeling insects all day, or that you find that one pressure. I'm just I'm like, oh my god, dude. Did you just imagine that? There's a 12 meters, you said? There's just a mama python. I mean, I'm picturing 10 feet long, at least girthy, girthy mama in the water, just staring at you. You're out there messing with it, and then all those other things that all oh my god.
SPEAKER_03I've helped pick one up that was like 23 feet long. Oh it took like it took like six or seven people to pick up. Dude, no idea. Maybe is what you're saying? Yeah, I don't know if they could. I don't know. Oh, Jesus Christ. No, I have no idea. I would think like a small doe, a Florida doe, they're pretty small. Let's talk about birds. I could be considered a small doe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you could. Yeah, you could, little guy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. A small doe with a machete.
SPEAKER_03There's a little bit of a different start. That's like your rap name. Small doe. Didn't John Voice parentheses with a machete.
SPEAKER_00Didn't John Void have a machete? Because that'd be an idiot if he didn't. That didn't help him in that documentary. Oh, he didn't know how to use it. Yeah, I must not have.
SPEAKER_02They were a little too carefree.
SPEAKER_00Well, we got a fun one. Travy alluded to it. I'm so excited to get to this part of it so I can get out of that. We got a fun one. We're gonna talk burning festivals and the spring migration. Oh my god!
SPEAKER_02Yeah, these guys have been holding their breath for a long time.
SPEAKER_00Miyamo Pat is a bit giddy-o. We're gonna let it lose. You guys ready to get to it? Yep. Bye.
SPEAKER_02Okay, the biggest week in American birding, the BWIAB. Right there. What is that? I would say near Sandusky, Ohio.
SPEAKER_03What is the Mommy Bay State Park is the headquarters.
SPEAKER_02Mommy Bay State Park, which is is that the is that part of the Maggie Marsh wildlife area?
SPEAKER_00I'd say like the Lake Erie waterfront area. Yeah. I don't know. I I think Maggie Marsh, and I I could be dead wrong on all this, but I believe Maggie Marsh is its own separate area. Yeah. Because that whole birding festival, like like Brad alluded to, I think the best way to say it's like that Mommy Bay State Park, that's the headquarters. That's where the resort and convention state. No, the lodge.
SPEAKER_03We had a bet, and I won't be a lot. I'm the one that kept calling it a lodge. It's not a you kept calling it resort. Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_02The mommy bay lodge.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, okay. Convention center.
SPEAKER_02Convention center. And conference center. Oh I did my homework, sons of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we had a bet on it. But it but it basically, the easiest way to explain it is it goes from Toledo to Cedar Point. Yeah. And then some on Michigan, and then some on the other side of Toledo.
SPEAKER_02For those Midwesterners listening, you know where Cedar Point is. Oh yeah. It's right up there on the street. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Or if you're not from here, you can say Cleveland.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, something along those lines. Like you're getting close to Cleveland all the way up east side.
SPEAKER_02Well, and the reason it's here, because it's a hot spot for uh the bird migration. This freaking bird migration, which at the it's the hot time, right? It's like May 8th through the 17th, I believe they said, at least for this year. Uh what when did you what days did you guys go? The ninth through the 12th. So you were right there, right?
SPEAKER_00We were maybe like a day or two early, I think. Yeah, it's certainly like as because we ended up following them on Blue Sky. Yeah. And that's where they were giving like you could see updates of like what people were seeing wherever if they like posted that thing.
SPEAKER_02So you can kind of see like the more the these people are posting, you're like, okay, now we should probably at Maggie Marsh.
SPEAKER_03Let's go. Yep, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marker five. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It was really cool. And and just to kind of explain that migration, because I just think it's really neat. Yeah. Uh living here in Fort Wayne, there's not a lot of like nature occurrences that people talk about that's like highly touted or just really, really cool. And I I get a kick out of the fact that being in Fort Wayne, we're about two and a half hours smack dab in the middle, east or west, of two amazing uh bird migrations coming up the Mississippi flyway, I believe is what it's called. Yeah. And then up into Canada is Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. And uh the birds coming up take a pit stop right in front of those lakes in Ohio and then in Indiana and a little bit of Michigan, like Brad was saying, yeah. They take a pit stop right there for a few weeks.
SPEAKER_02It's a very good time to rest before you have to fly over.
SPEAKER_03To fly over the Great Lakes to their breeding places. And not to mention here in Fort Wayne, they are coming through here.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I think uh Eagle Marsh says that like they get about 232 species that are can be found there during the spring and fall migrations, primarily the spring.
SPEAKER_02I think anybody in in Fort Wayne or the surrounding area, if you've got Merlin on your phone this time of season, stick it out your back window, and you might be surprised by what kind of birds are flying through your area.
SPEAKER_00I I just Merlin is is the most fun app to have if you're outside doing if I'm mowing my yard, I'll leave I'm in the front, I'll leave my phone on in the back with Merlin on, and I'll come back to just a little bit of like, ooh, that's cool.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I think Merlin's like an entry-level birding drug.
SPEAKER_00Like, oh, there's an Oreo around here somewhere. I don't even know if it's an entry-level birding drug. I I I I would be hard pressed to believe that at any of the birding festivals that we've gone to, a good 80, 85, 90% of those people have Merlin on somewhere on strapped to them. And they're looking at their phones.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, I mean, that's what Travis is saying. Like getting like getting downloading Merlin and sticking it out your back window, that's like the addiction into birding. Oh, I disagree.
SPEAKER_02It makes it so much more accessible.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because you're not sitting there wondering w what those birds are. Like it's telling you and it's a great learning tool to learn the birds. Absolutely. And I I think that's what really started driving me recently is just wow, I didn't know that those types of birds could just be in my backyard.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you had a black Bernie and warbler.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I had some really cool I I wasn't able to spot them, trust me, I was looking, but I I really wanted to spot them, but I couldn't. I hear you. But I was I was glad to see that that was possible. That you can get some, you know, more unique birds in the city.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think it's I think it's exceptionally cool for this region to have such a sweet, like natural process happen. And if you ever have an opportunity to get to either the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival or to the uh biggest week in American birding, it is it is a very fun time.
SPEAKER_02I think just knowing about it is a hurdle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm forty-two years old and I never you know knew about the bird migration. Or even certain times of year you would be able to see different kinds of birds and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Or even just that area. Uh we stayed in Port Clinton, which is pretty like not far west of the festival, but on the western side of the festival. And we didn't go to this side of that area last year. And so we kind of saw we were still in the middle of a peninsula, like it it is kind of the Cedar Point. I think it is the Cedar Point, is what they call it. And there's a bunch of there's like a couple state parks up there, all kinds of townships by buy land and turning turn them into nature preserves. So there's so much, so many places to go hike, and they're super cool. And I saw so many bald eagles and shit.
SPEAKER_02I wanted to mention that too. Of like it this festival isn't just people coming here to go look at birds. There's activities and stuff that you can do, including guided uh field trips. You they got speakers and presentations that you can go watch. Uh they got marketplaces with artwork and all that stuff, and there's anything from beginner to expert level birding stuff you can do.
SPEAKER_03Oh man, there's birds photography classes, there's photography Lightroom, like Adobe Lightroom classes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I believe there's birding karaoke.
SPEAKER_03They give you computer software. There's a birding tattoo. There's a birding tattoo.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god. They get if you dude, it it really is a great, it's a great festival and a great area to go to.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but that's yeah, like and kind of my point too is not even if you don't even like go to the birding festival, just that area in general. Yeah, it is super cool. Like we could I we could tell Port Clinton was kind of like a summer town. Yeah, I told you. Like there were a bunch of bars on the beaches and stuff.
SPEAKER_00When I got back Catawba Island is what you're referring to, where we one of the places you're referring to, too, where it was we stay so you have the Birding Festival East, and then where we stayed Port Clinton was further west than that, like about 10-15 miles west of that, and then 10-15 miles north of where we were in Port Clinton is Catawba Island. Yeah, and on Catawba Island, you I think there was seven parks, which you can drive to. It's not a very boat island. No, and it was it's just a long like road where there's water on both sides, and now you're on the island, and it was awesome. We spent uh the second day we went to this festival. We actually just stayed on Catawba Island for the whole second day. Brad went out, Brad, Sarah, and Logan went out to one place, and then when I got back over there, we went to another place, and then we went to another place, and then back to the apartment. Yeah, that the that was that was stunning because you were right on the water, uh Lake Erie, and it was a gorgeous day that day. And then when you were walking, you were walking through a completely different environment.
SPEAKER_02You know what I'm learning through this, especially with our exploration of Michigan, is the Great Lakes have so many little nooks and crannies and all this other stuff that I think you could probably spend a lifetime exploring the Great Lakes and never discovering.
SPEAKER_03This is a huge, it's such a big area.
SPEAKER_02Well, you guys are close to the world's biggest GM that's on that's on uh uh Putin Bay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I know where you're talking, and you do have to take a fair reason. And you can you can kind of see it.
SPEAKER_03I can see that glissing off of sparkling.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We're gonna go there.
SPEAKER_02If next year you could go from Port Clinton and I go to the Birding Festival, you guys have to go walk through the geode with me.
SPEAKER_00Next year I'm going to the Birding Festival for the whole week. Like I'm not just going one day or take a little time to walk through a geode. No, that's what I'm saying. Like that I would walk through it with going all the time. That's how big it is, Brad. It's apparently huge. We looked it up when we were there. Patrick could walk through where we were, they said we saw the ferry. I think there might be a ferry off of Port Clinton there is, yeah. Um, but yeah, dude, I I would I would take a half a day or a day to get out there.
SPEAKER_03Maybe a quarter of a day. Yeah. It would be the evening. No, it'd be like noon when the birds are the most.
SPEAKER_02I want a picture of you, Patrick. Be like just Patrick for scale. Getting through that geode. You got it, bro. Yeah, and we need to hang it on the uh gallery studio wall here.
SPEAKER_00And make it blurry.
SPEAKER_02Done. A little blurry.
SPEAKER_00Uh so the size of this place, too. I what I another kind of feature of of all these parks and places is a lot of them are called metro parks. Yeah. And I I'm not, I'm still I not have not a Google search, but I don't necessarily really understand what a metro park is.
SPEAKER_03I think it's because like you you were I brought that up, and I looked you brought it up later in the day, and when we were at the um Meadowbrook Marsh, it was a metro park. Oh, yeah. And I had looked up, I still have my Gaia subscription. Yeah. No matter how much trash I've talked about Gaia.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's because you have to get a year.
SPEAKER_03Come in really handy ever since you talked shit. Uh but one like big benefit that it has that's like super helpful is it shows uh property boundaries and who owns the property. Like it'll say like like your estate, Patrick, says Richardson's or something, like it says Patrick Richardson. Yeah. Uh so these, when I was at that Meadowbrook Marsh, like a lot of the other ones I looked at, when you look at the ownership, it's like that township owns that property. And it's not a it's not it's not just a park, like they didn't just make it a park, but there's something designation to where if they make it like a nature preserve or some kind of uh like conservation property, then they get like funding or tax breaks and tax breaks and stuff. Oh, you get extra stuff to take care of it. Right. I I mean I think you get that when it's a park too, but it's just like a different category that it's in. So it's township, yeah. I think it's it's not like yeah, they're not like state, they're not they may be city or county, but yeah, it's like usually that local area owns it.
SPEAKER_00I would venture to guess that a good chunk of the parks that you go to closer to Maggie Marsh or to Maumee Bay uh State Park, that most of those are metro parks around there. And they're so clean. Like they're just they're who maintains them? Who's apparently the town? Yeah, they do 'em. But they are gorgeous, dude.
SPEAKER_02That's usually where like your smaller towns they tend to take care of their parks a little bit better.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But see, I think that might be it too, because you you didn't see anything that was like Port Clinton City Park. Nope. So I think maybe they just call them Metro Parks.
SPEAKER_00That's true.
SPEAKER_02Interesting. Metro just sounds too much metropolis. City like the the festival draws thousands every year. Yeah, there it is.
SPEAKER_03The website said like sixty to eighty thousand people. But you wouldn't guess it. Is it something you can just sh show up to? Or do you we've never uh yeah, we've talked about registering for it, but then you don't need to register for it.
SPEAKER_00No, I have no desire to register.
SPEAKER_03I saw there was a thing for rebb registration, but it's like it's like if you want to go on tours and stuff, if you want to go to the keynote speeches and uh participate in the best bird tattoo contest, I think you have to be registered. Well, and we don't like guides, we like doing our own thing, going at our own pace.
SPEAKER_00Well, and we have a beer for lunch, we're chilling out like there there's a part, there's a level to, I mean, as much as Brad and I are out there, I mean, every every day, the four days we were there, it was sun up to sunny.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I know if I said, Hey, you guys want to go grab a beer, I'd probably get a couple of yes.
SPEAKER_03Travis, I tell you, the best part of every day, so it was like you wake up and like the whole thing, you look forward to I know we're gonna be out outside somewhere until six o'clock at night, seven o'clock at night. Yep. But then for like an hour or something, we would pack a cooler every day, lunch meat, bread, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, beer, and we'd at launchers, and we would post up at the back at the back of the Subi for about an hour and just chill out and like have sandwiches, have snacks, drink some beers. Talk about what we saw, talk about what the place is that we're going next. It was like the best part of the day. Super and even got towards the end, we were like, Well, like, do we want to have lunch here or do we want to go to the next place and see what it looks like? Yeah, it might be a better scenery for lunch. Yeah, chill.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Dude, it is, it's just a very fun time. You do not need to have a registration. You can go there for an hour or something. And all their state parks are free. All their Ohio State Parks are free. It's it's it's just a it's just a fun time, a fun experience. If you're one of those people that are listening that just want to experience something, you just like experiences, then you should think about going to a birding festival near you.
SPEAKER_03And even if you don't know what you're looking at, like everybody's you can just walk up and say, Hey, what are you guys looking at? I have and they'll say exactly what they're looking at.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I have a pretty good, uh, a pretty good strategy for it. It's pretty nice. Uh, and I'm also six foot two, six foot three on a good day. So it's really nice. It works out good because I can kind of be like, if they're because you'll you'll walk up, it's almost kind of what you just do, because you could just walk as fast as you want down the boardwalk until you find a group of people taking a photo, yeah, or looking through their bins or whatever, and I just walk up to them and I'm like, What are you looking at? And they'll be like, Oh, we got a Tennessee warbler at nine o'clock, we got a Wilson or uh black and white warbler at six o'clock, and you're like, Okay, cool. And then I would stand in the back because they're taller than everybody to take photos. Well, everyone does it, and everybody helps you find the birds then. Like they feel like they're forced to give up their birding data. Dude, the boardwalk is four and a half feet wide, and I'm a game feet wide.
SPEAKER_03Birding Gestapo accents. And I'm like a capuchin' memorable. And I'm like Patrick's baby capuchin monkey. Yeah. Where I'm just like inside his like underneath him, like up on his shoulders, in between his arms.
SPEAKER_00There was a time before I had Logan. It was During the uh whipper wheel, when I had Logan all the way at my my knees, I had Brad to my left and Sarah was right behind me with bins.
SPEAKER_02It's so good. I will say having a tall person in the group is a very valuable thing to have because it does help keep team cohesion, group cohesion. Because we know like if we get lost, find the tall guy. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's it's pretty nice. Yeah. But if there's like any sort of incident, you're probably gonna be the first one dead.
SPEAKER_00That's there's a good, I mean, my I hope that my gate is long enough to make it past the slow other slogan. I'm more of like a hedgehog just Oh, I see, yeah. That's true. That's true. And everybody notices me too, so that sucks. Uh uh, some more things about the festival, too, isn't it? Uh there's always there's always like you alluded to, there's places to kind of go shopping and get some merch or whatever, and that's mostly at the headquarters. But a really kind of fun part of this, and probably the highlight of this. Yeah, and probably everywhere uh at every festival is this way, but there's something called an optics alley where all the uh camera guys, the bin guys, the spotting scope guys, guys.
SPEAKER_03There's one thing at the optics alley that's like it's the coolest thing to do to spotting scope every time.
SPEAKER_00You walk right past everything to the spotting scope.
SPEAKER_03Outside, they have like 20 spotting scopes lined up on tripods.
SPEAKER_02Is it like uh like you know when we went to the backpacking festival and there's a bunch like gear people set up and stuff like that? Is that kind of what it is? Like, hey, look through our optics.
SPEAKER_03This is like nobody's messing, nobody's there, nobody's no salesman. There's just 20 tripods in the middle of a field lined up. Yeah, you're the only ones there. Oh, they just live. There's no salesman saying product speak for itself, yes, and they're like all there's like a dead tree, there's like stuff, like perfect things to focus on, and you can just go down the line and be like, God damn, yeah. Yeah, it's if I know myself, I would be like, God damn.
SPEAKER_00My mom's my mom listens to this and she's a Savorsky fan, and Savorski makes a line of bins and uh spotting scopes. My God, dude. They were glorious. Insane, they're so big, but it it is it it's oh my lord, you can see the heartbeat of a bird damn near. Yeah. It is insane. It's super cool. Savorski also has bins, they make bins, just a little bit of a more plug for Savorski. They make bins. That would be if you have an extra couple grand.
SPEAKER_02Sweet sponsor. Keep talking, Ben.
SPEAKER_00They have uh bins that come with Merlin built in. So as you're looking at a bird, there's little like red, like it'll tell you the bird's name as you're looking through the binoculars. I'll get that. And those are about six thousand dollars a pair. Nice. That ain't for me. Yeah. No, I know. But dude, it's awesome to be able to go look at them for a couple bones.
SPEAKER_02Damn lazy.
SPEAKER_00Whatever, it's awesome, dude.
SPEAKER_03Well, let's get into like uh what our favorite locations of the migration were.
SPEAKER_02Sure. What do you mean? The overall like uh regional area?
SPEAKER_03Because I added or are you talking about beyond Ohio in American birding? Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Beyond that? Yeah, okay. Let's get to the migrations. Mine's my backyard because that's the only place I saw. Go ahead. You didn't see any at the family farming? Well, and the bully the boulevard on Kensington, and yeah, the family farm.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I bet those woods at the family farm have some good stuff.
SPEAKER_02There's all sorts of shit.
SPEAKER_03Because that's super swampy land out there.
SPEAKER_02Touche. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I think granted, like the Maggie Marsh boardwalk is epic. It's hard to top that. That's like we I we've talked about it, but we I it's a magical place where you somehow birds don't get scared by people, and they're all eye-level. It's just like a weird thing. They're like right there in front of you, and they don't give a shit. And these are the most colorful just landing in the trees right next to the trees. They're just like eating like bugs and eating buds off trees. Just bounce, just bouncing around, right? Like you don't need you don't need binoculars. What do you think that is? Do you think that's generational trust? Well, it's just there it's a marsh, there's it could be, but there's no like tall trees. They're all pretty short. So there's nothing for them to like normally when you're out the tree, like the big tree warblers is like uh when I went out with John, that's what he called them, the big tree warblers, they're just way up in the canopy and you can't see them. But here they're like eye level and they don't jump, they don't get scared. Is it there's a million people around? Is it because the canopy's lower or yeah, like I that's one reason. I I honestly don't know. But it's why it's the place to go during the biggest week in America Marine.
SPEAKER_02It it really is. Well, I guess the closer you get to the shoreline, the sh shorter the the trees are gonna be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, because it's like a march. And they're all gonna stop there.
SPEAKER_00They have no choice. You're number one because we want I thought we wanted to get past the BW on the book.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I don't think we talked about like how special that like that place is. Okay. Cause so because that's I think that's the obvious number.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what yeah, like that's what's the thing that that would make you go back to that place. We've talked about all the things that it offers you.
SPEAKER_00Sheer numbers, just the amount of species that you see. You're gonna you you could make one pass down that boardwalk, which I think is like a mile and a half to the miles. I think it's long, it's like three miles. Yeah, you could walk down that and come out of that with 30 new species.
SPEAKER_03And it's the help that you get because other people are spotting them and you're seeing them spotting them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it's a birding cheat code. If you want to go, if you want to get your list up real quick, yeah. Bam. Birding.
SPEAKER_03Another birding cheat code that I unlocked was going birding with Chad and his friend John, who's like a bird whisperer.
SPEAKER_02And you cheat coded in Texas, and you cheat coded in Costa Rica.
SPEAKER_00Brad's all about I think you kind of have to be at some regard. In some regard. It's how you learn, too. I mean, I'll also throw one out there, and that was the Indiana Dunes. Uh, we we we intended to go there, but kind of got a little bit lost after that first weekend. And but I ended up going with uh my nephew.
SPEAKER_02I think at one point we all were gonna go to Indiana Dunes.
SPEAKER_00Uh I went there with my nephew and my son, and we did uh uh six miles of a trail, three out, three back, and it was awesome. I mean, my phone was lighting up like crazy. It wasn't as easy to see the birds because there were tall trees, and it was just but the scenery, the ecosystem was amazing, the people out there, same way, it was amazing. Uh the visitor center was pretty fun to go to.
SPEAKER_02Earlier, I mentioned in the the beginning of it. Right. That's what I'm leading to. Yeah, I did a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00Maybe it's not so great, but I did a lot of shit talking about that area, and I think it's because I've only been to like the one place, but then Jabin, when I shit talked that place to Javen, and Jabin spent a lot of time there, he said it was a lot cooler and it's a lot bigger than what I thought. So what I did is I went down to the Harry Douglas, I think, uh visitor and education center, and all the that was all the way on the west side of the park. And I'm telling you, it was awesome. I we I I ended up we just did that trail and I added seven species to my list just in that trail. It was absolutely beautiful, spread out to the point that like so I I do have kind of a negative about the B I uh BWAIB that I'll get into in a little bit, but that negative was not gonna be found at the dunes because it was such a vast area that like I saw maybe two other groups of people. Also, not as many people.
SPEAKER_03And yeah, and also their website said something like they had a record number of registrants this year and it was like 800.
SPEAKER_00I mean, does that that doesn't I guess I thought it'd be way more than that. I guess well, I guess originally I kind of scoffed at that a little bit, and I'm not trying to sound like a butthole, but I kind of scoffed at that number. But then again, if if we're saying that one of the drawbacks of the biggest week in of in Ohio is the sheer number of people, then and that same migration pattern is happening on the other side of where we live, and there's fifty-nine thousand less people, isn't that then way better? Yeah, well, not even that.
SPEAKER_03Like, yes, that and it seemed like there were tours that were they were kind of seemed kind of pricey, but tours at at dunes. Yeah. But tours that I didn't see at like the wormies tour going after like worm eating and nesting warblers. Yeah, like that would be a tour I'd go on.
SPEAKER_02Are you saying that might be a little underrated in terms of spring migration?
SPEAKER_00I'm saying that 60,000 people go four and a half hours to the other direction to the biggest week in American birding. And okay, I I'm just gonna I'm just gonna give a gripe.
SPEAKER_02Lay it out.
SPEAKER_00Lay it out, brother. Something about the biggest week in American birding. I I don't know if it's the festival itself or just me getting more into this, but I think I witnessed a bit of the annoyingly dark side of birding, if you will. I am intrigued. And it was the dark side of work one incidence that really pissed me off a little bit was the Sawa owl. Yeah. I think that for a bunch of people that claim to be, you know, these bird people, they're in it for the birds, they love birds and all these things. Boy, they sure didn't give a shit if they were scaring the ever-loving fuck out of a bird. And then it wasn't just tiny, cute little tiny little cute bird. And these people were acting like fucking animals in some regard. It was saying the visitors? The people there, the people they're birding. I mean, so much so that plenty of times while because we had to walk by that area because you did the loops at the boardwalk. But there were plenty of times when I was walking up there and like like volunteers at the biggest week were like, all right, guys, everybody move.
SPEAKER_03Well, so like this is fucking crazy. This this was a sawet owl in a bush, like three, two to three feet off the boardwalk.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it's like Walmart, Black Friday, doorbust. And it's a saw wet out.
SPEAKER_03Like you don't see saw what you don't see one, so it's exceptionally rare, but like, and it's kind of camouflaged in this bush, too. Like it's not completely exposed.
SPEAKER_00Well, and you you have the guy with the biggest lens because he's a fucking nerd. Yeah, and he's standing there in front of everyone because he's got to get the master shot and his lens his lens where it's like, dude, what the fuck are you doing with that eye? Two feet away from the bird's face, and he won't move. So then, like, the kids that are coming up there, my son, and I I've personally witnessed like three other kids that were trying to have this magical moment, and you have this dickhead 65-year-old with a big fucking lens, like he's about to take the greatest goddamn photo in the world. And I just I at that moment I was like, oh, this might not be like the friendliest place in the world. It just kind of pissed me off.
SPEAKER_02No, I completely understand you on that. And my experience goes to uh Indianapolis Colts training camp. And like towards the end of the training camp, like, you know, the big dudes, the big names from the Colts will come, you know, off to the sidelines and start signing autographs and stuff. And I always think, like, oh, that's so cool for them to be able to do that. And yeah, and you just see these just I don't know, grown ass dudes just running there with a bunch of crap, like cutting off the kids and the families. And I'm like, what the hell are you doing, man? Yeah, like that's so I had a hat. I didn't get Pat McAfee's signature on my hat uh that I brought to the training camp because I was like, these kids need it more than me.
SPEAKER_00Well, I applaud that, and I guess like then that's Well, we saw this twice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we saw it with the whippoorwhelm. Yes, we did. And uh Sowet Owl.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Which look up pictures of both.
SPEAKER_00Well, and then there was also the Scarlet Tanager in the cra in the parking lot. Patrick was about to fight us up. That was when I actually spoke up because that was shortly after the saw what owl when I watched adults act like absolute assholes. And then when I was walking out the parking lot, there was a scarlet tanager kind of flying from bush to bush. And when we walked up, there seemed to be like this like just unsaid line of people standing there that because they weren't like encroaching, so they didn't scare the bird away for everybody else to see.
SPEAKER_03And it was like 15 people in a line.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like so you know, and then excited because he gets to add another bird. I'm trying to get him out there. You know, it's it's just fun for all of us and and have an 11-year-old that's enjoying it too. So he's trying to get a photo, and then these this like like four people in this family just walk straight up to as close as you could possibly get in front of everyone. And I once again it's just it just it I just didn't like the idea that I I in the Listers movie, they make a comment about it how it's a fucking bird, bro. Like as much as we're having it's just a bird. It's just a fucking bird and let's give everybody else in. And then when I can say that kind of stuff, and then I go to the dunes to tie this all together, I guess there is it's a bit underrated because if you can sh talk about the sheer amount of people at one, and there's another one in the direct path of this migration as well, with fifty-nine thousand less people, then it seems like that's the one for you. And I got the experience like when you were out there, you were by yourself, and that was really fun.
SPEAKER_02It's like there's bird paparazzi that come out there and ruin everything.
SPEAKER_03It felt like I think you guys go enjoy it next time. Like, I think I was telling Sarah like that felt like this feels gross.
SPEAKER_00Well, and what was Sarah's like least favorite part? It was on the boardwalk, yeah. It was just like a little much.
SPEAKER_02I think it's like she did not want to go back to the boardwalk. I've never felt more gross in my life when I just followed the crowd.
SPEAKER_00But there's like a way to do it, like there's an etiquette to it. That for the most part people forget when they want to get the perfect shot or their new bird. That's the thing. But for the most part, you could easily, you should. Like it was a it it's last year, it was one of my most favorite parts, is because I can't I couldn't identify a palm warbler and a northern yellow warbler. Like, I didn't know the difference. So going up to a group of people that knew the difference and then be able to tell me what I'm gonna take a photo of or what to get excited about, like that's cool. But there's a level there of like decorum.
SPEAKER_03Decorum. And sometimes you people would walk up and be like, What do you see? And I'd be like, It's a black Bernie and Warbler, and they'd be like, Oh, I already saw one. And they would just turn around and walk away. That's what I would give a shit.
SPEAKER_00But it's also like why did you have to make that comment? Just because most people are out there for their lifeless.
SPEAKER_03And it's also still a cool looking bird, and it's like four feet away from us right now. Oh, I thought he was like, uh No, yeah, no. He's like, I don't give a fuck. Like, I already saw that bird. Yeah, I've already seen it Blackburning on this trip. Rookie piece of shit.
SPEAKER_00I'm not trying to like shit talk this whole thing because are birders aggressive? No, no, no, no, no. The whole premise of this is these festivals are exceptionally fun. Yeah, these are few and far between. These are few and far between individuals. Hattie, you started this. You had some gripes.
SPEAKER_03There's shitty people everywhere you can. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02It wasn't well anywhere we go on the trail, you you know, at one end or the other, you're gonna run into a group of people that are just loud as hell, screaming they're not in the moment whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00Let me just kind of end this, end this section before we I don't want to get I don't want to keep going down this negative path. But all I'm saying is that if you have gone to the biggest week in birding and didn't like the crowds, if you are not into crowds and want to go birding, then I think there's a perfect substitute for you, and that's over at the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival to plug them. That was cool. That's all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03And all and also the Maggie Marsh boardwalk is the only place with the crowd.
SPEAKER_00That's true. You can go to all the other places and be almost with no one too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And uh for the Indiana Dunes, the Indiana Autobahn does a little thing up there for the city. They're the ones that put it together. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Awesome stuff, dude. It it is really cool. What uh I I I'm curious. Now I want to get to our our birding stuff because I think we're running out of time after the rant. Yeah. But uh what did you what did you add? Like how many did you add? You don't have to tell me every species. Um like where were you at in your life list? And then where did you where did you come? You were damn near 200. Yeah, it was like 283.
SPEAKER_02Oh, shit.
SPEAKER_03287. Yeah. Way behind. And I'm at 306 now. Are you shit me? What's the math? But honestly, the most that I got was when I went out with Chad at the ball nature preserve. Nice. We had we got 76 different species on the photograph after the photographed? You guys took 76. No. We we saw. Nope. We're going by everybody else's rules. If you see it with your bins.
SPEAKER_00Oh well, nope. I still don't agree. Nope.
SPEAKER_03What if you see it just with your eyes? Yeah, it's it counts. Just not the patty because he doesn't trust you that you actually don't trust anybody that much.
SPEAKER_02Um I my philosophy on it, the way I do my birding, is I don't really care what anybody else thinks. If I saw the bird, I saw it and I'm gonna be able to do it. Yeah, it's a good time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Like I saw so many new birds that I never expected I would see.
SPEAKER_00That's cool. That's so you went from 286 to 306? Yeah. What's the math? Is that 20? Is that 30 birds? This this migration? Or how much did you come out with at the end of the migration? So far.
SPEAKER_03306. I'm at 306 right now. Okay. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_02I want to know where because after you guys did the festival in Ohio, and then Patty went to well, you went up there with Chad too, like the first day, right? No. Up to the dunes. Chad never went up there?
SPEAKER_00No, I just went with my nephew and Sebastian.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you just went up there to do it, and then you, Brad, and Chad later went.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we went. I drove like an hour away to the Edmund and Virginia Ball Nature Preserve. In Indiana? In Indiana. It's like up like northwest part, like by Webster. Um, there's a ton of nature preserves up in that area. It is Casyasco County. So I'm now on the lead, like on the leaderboard that Jabin was talking about, him and Chad argue. Now my name's in the mix. Because I got 76 new species on the year at Casyasco County. Oh, yeah, I forgot. Bullshit.
SPEAKER_02Fred's leading like the freaking ranking in several different counties in Indiana right now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's pretty funny.
SPEAKER_00Because you saw 76 species with binoculars? Or you heard them too? We saw them. Okay. You saw 76 birds species when you went out there. Yeah. Okay. Can you just straight up lie on that? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's the honor.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, people can.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because otherwise you'd probably have to send in a there's a picture.
SPEAKER_03That's why Patty says unless you have a photo, it doesn't count.
SPEAKER_00I think it is ridiculous. That is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_03I bet there's some that you've misidentified with.
SPEAKER_02How about you Sure, absolutely? Uh just be a trustful person. Nope.
SPEAKER_00Nope, because I know humanity. Well, the second there's competition involved, the second people will cheat.
SPEAKER_02But also with I would trust Brad. I would trust you.
SPEAKER_00But also It's not even that I don't trust Brad. I just don't know if like I can't he would lie to you or not. It's not about lying, it's about misidentification.
SPEAKER_03But see, it's also like being with Chad and uh like so Chad invited uh his friend John, who's like an old school, like it was amazing. I learned a shitload being out with this guy. He was awesome. So being with those two, there was many things where if I like I like a Canada warbler, there I would I may not have said like, yep, Canada Warbler check, but I saw it, uh or say a morning warbler, uh yellow body grayhead. They're like, I'm like, oh man, yellow body grayhead. And they're like, Yep, that's a morning warbler. And I'm like, oh yes, morning warbler, of course.
SPEAKER_02I tell you what, it is nice to have that confirmation next to you because I honestly I'm still looking at house barrows and wondering if they're house barrows to this day. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03See, that's why I've gotten to the point now where I'm Ben's like I keep I've gone kind of swapped back and forth. Like now I'm Ben's first. And then if it's a good shot, or if it's something that's like showing itself, then I pull my camera up. Or if it's a good shot right off the bat, I pull my camera up first. But if it's like I can barely see it, like bouncing around in leaves, then I put Ben's on it and see what it is. And just watch it.
SPEAKER_02Photographer's instinct.
SPEAKER_03Trying to yeah, like there's no point if it's not gonna be a good shot. Like there's no point in taking the photo.
SPEAKER_02You're gonna start smoking cigarettes here soon.
SPEAKER_03Lucky strider. No, what's the black cloves or whatever? But it's funny because my favorite photo from the birding festival, Baszy actually spotted this, and it was two Robins parents feeding their nestlings. Yeah. And it was like uh two feet off the boardwalk, and one of the coolest photos I got was like one of the parents hovering over, you know, like the fame like all the the nestlings like with their heads straight up, beaks open. I got a photo like that, and it's like it's like a robin. You see them all the time, but it's an but it's an awesome photo.
SPEAKER_02That's my thing, is that I'm just because I'll like text you guys and be like, oh, I saw this bird in my backyard, and I've been watching it with my bins doing this cool shit the whole time. And then you guys are like, Oh yeah, fuck off, you dumb idiot. We're at the birding festival. I'm looking at warblers, bro. I'm like, you know what? The ordinary birds can be cool too.
SPEAKER_00What are your favorite birds that you got that you got at the festival this year?
SPEAKER_03Um a gnat a gray gnatcatcher building a nest.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you showed it. Like sitting in the nest.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Yeah. Uh and a black bernier warbler was super cool. Or black burnian.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I wanna that's one that I wanna. It's super cool. It's cool. It's so cool.
SPEAKER_03Google that, listeners. Like, because it's a it has like a firehead. Black Burnian warbler. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02If you're from the Midwest and you don't know about warblers, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're missing out. You're gonna, yeah, your mind's gonna be blown on like a good three two months out of the year, you're missing out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and the black-throated blue warbler. There's something about that. Like I feel like that's more of a common one, but that one looks so cool. Like the contrast of the blue and the black on his face is so cool.
SPEAKER_00One of my favorite uh photos I got at the Catawba Falls was the northern yellow warbler when that when I saw that little guy in its nest as well. Oh, yeah. I got a photo of it. I posted it on social media for us. We were watching the building staring at us dead in the eyes. I got a photo of just like propped up in its nest looking at us. It was so cool. But we sat there and watched her for probably 10 minutes or so just fly away and they both kept stuff. It seemed like there may have been two just coming in. Oh yeah, probably. Super cool. It would that that was that was one of my favorites. Uh we we alluded to the Eastern uh whippoorwill. Yeah, that was that that was that's one of my favorites, too. That was such a cool it like a master of disguise. Somebody when I first got there said that.
SPEAKER_02I saw the picture Brad had, and I was like, what the what's going on here? Yeah, you can't even tell. It was incredible.
SPEAKER_00They said if you think that's or if you don't think that's the whippoorwill, that's it. That's the whippelhear that's a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Oh, hearing, yeah, hearing people explain like we were a hundred yards down the thing. We hadn't even got there yet. Yeah, and some guy was like, they're gonna tell you, look for the woodpecker holes, go down that tree, like blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, look for this and that. And we're like, okay, dude, cool. You found it fast, though. Yeah, I followed that guy's advice. Yeah, and you ran it. I do want to highlight Brad, the guy at the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_00Weather's gonna be good.
SPEAKER_02Your guys are good.
SPEAKER_00Brad created a new way of telling showing people really how to find a bird. Brad, do you want to tell Javis?
SPEAKER_03Like, it felt pretty good, especially when there's like somebody really struggling, like, really want you can tell they really want to see it.
SPEAKER_00Ample amounts of times to test this prodigy.
SPEAKER_02I was thinking about this just a couple days ago, because I was talking to Debbie and I was like, Oh, how can I describe to her where this freaking bird is?
SPEAKER_03So, what you do is straight up just take a photo with your phone, try to make it so that subject's in focus, like tap on the screen and where the subject is so it's in focus, yeah. And then pull up that photo and point and say, Look right here, and like hold it up to what you're looking at. Fuck it perfectly. Like seeing it. And like find that find the biggest thing, like a dead tree on the ground, and be like, okay, see this dead tree, see the dead tree in real life. Bing like follow it back, perfect and like ban there's like 20 times after that. Uh people get so they're like, holy shit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's yeah. I think people commented. They're like, that was a great way of showing me where they were.
SPEAKER_03There was somebody one time there was somebody with that. I was like, man, like, hey, I came up with this good way to find photos, blah, blah, blah. Because his girlfriend was trying to tell him where it was and he couldn't see it. And then I just turned around and walked away, and he was like, Oh, it would have been nice if you would have done that for me.
SPEAKER_04Like, took a photo and showed me where it was.
SPEAKER_03And I was like, I didn't even hear him saying that.
SPEAKER_02That is that's like a good, like, new 21st century way to do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it works great. Yeah, but they do have to be kind of like chilling. They can't be going too crazy because then they move, you know. Yeah, but yeah, it worked great. That was that's it was fun, like show like people get it because there were some people you could tell just like were like getting so frustrated and they really wanted to see this whippo. They just can't, dude. It was camouflaged.
SPEAKER_00It was it was hard. I mean, like that, like that guy said. Oh it was it was hard. It was it was for me.
SPEAKER_03And you hear people all around being like, find the tree with the woodpecker holes, go down that tree. There's a splash of sunlight over some grass. Like that's dude, it was literally like everywhere you were describing a painting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was awesome. One of my other favorite birds that we saw while we were at Howard Marsh Metro Park, which is a really cool, so we ended up going to a couple other places, like I said, and there was this place we went last year that Brad and I were like, we need to go there because that's where the shore birds are, and there are tons of them.
SPEAKER_03And it took us like three places that we went to to try to find.
SPEAKER_00I just couldn't think of it. Yeah, neither of us could. I think it was kind of like the last place on the list. It was like, oh, or I think you said it, let's go to Howard Marsh. And it was like, all right, let's try it. And as soon as we pulled in, we're like, this is it, dude.
SPEAKER_03But that's the thing, there's so many marshes and shit. Like Yeah, there are.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I'll remember that forever because when we first pulled in, there's a kind of a marsh pond thing to your left, and there were a boatload of people standing out there, but just because like in in that one area was five different species of birds. Like I said, and there was the Caspian turns. Dude, those things to me, after photographing them and zooming in and watching them for a little bit, what's the name? Those Caspian. Caspian turns.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and there was like 20, 25 of them just like chilling in the water, perched on the water. They're shorebirds? Yeah, well no, they're seabirds, I think, is what they call.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you remember back to the story that one of us did about the Arctic turn and the turn that stays in the water like almost its whole flight over the water. That's a turn. And there were we got a photo of a common turn, and then we got these, but the like the common what I thought was cool is these Caspian turns, turns are huge. Yeah, like they are much larger than a common turn. Or when I was down in South Carolina, I got a Forster's turn and another one.
SPEAKER_03They would they were real like they just looked like they they were stealth, and they're all sitting close in the water, and they're all facing like angled exactly the same direction, like into the wind. Exactly into the wind. Yep. Well-disciplined birds. Oh, it was yeah, it's it's a cool thing to see.
SPEAKER_00It was it was really cool when we pulled up on those. And it's and they are like stoic looking. Yeah, it w it was neat. Uh Caspian is so turns are the birds that you generally see like kind of flying around, like staying still in air over the water, and then they go boom, hit the water, come back out with a fish or maybe nothing. Yeah, but that's what that's a turn.
SPEAKER_02Uh, you you'll see that they they hunt for fish on the that come a little too close to the surface.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We saw a bunch of them when we did the all Sable River, too. Yeah, we did. We were watching them fish one day. Yep. Yeah, that's cool.
SPEAKER_02But I do like birds that uh fish. Yeah, they're fun to watch.
SPEAKER_00It is fun. Uh another one I and we can roll out if we want, but I just want to point out the Wilson snipe, that was my first time seeing like uh like to me that was kind of like I don't know if it's actually this, but kind of like a woodcock, a Virginia rail just seemed like very like elusive. It never really came out of the weeds or anything.
SPEAKER_03It's another super camouflaged one, too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but there was some lady, you know, right in this Howard Marsh that was like, hey, there's a Wilson snipe right there, and we all got eyes on it.
SPEAKER_03And this is where the Brad Greer method of taking a photo and showing people originated.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yes, because it was really hard to see. Yeah. So that so that was really cool. Uh there was just a lot. It's not just warblers.
SPEAKER_03See, that's the thing, like there's a lot of cool moments, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and like throughout it was what was it, over a a two-week period, over a week period you guys were out and about?
SPEAKER_03It's about two weeks pretty hard, I think. Like, yeah, I mean there's still birds here that I'm uh I mean Yeah, I heard a Tennessee warbler during lunch, too. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you were to go on to like it's the thing called birdcast, that's been getting cedar wax wings all over. There you go. Only available during the migration is this bird cast. And like right now, we're just getting to like the peak. Now, the warbl, like there's different like waves of birds that come in. Brad, Brad's someone that told me this where like I although we're at the peak of that that migration, the warblers are on their way, like almost on the like now.
SPEAKER_03It could be like gray cabbage or what's showing up.
SPEAKER_02It's like a bell shape. Yeah, like you're gonna have this. Is the dust amount of species of fly catchers, like ducks or first? Forget some later ducks are first, yeah. Buns flying through, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right now, like if we went out, you would probably see the vireos, the fly catchers, the what you're saying is don't go inside, like it's the migration's not over.
SPEAKER_03This is a wonderful season to be out, and like another really cool moment, I'll shout out, it'll be my last one. I was at Matea County Park, Matea North County Park, and I've read on the Indiana Audubon website they have like a save the wood thrush, like it's the sound of the forest, like a beautiful sound just permeating through the forest. And I've never heard them before, I've never seen them before. And there was like three, four, or five from all corners of the forest calling, and it was like enchanting, it was super cool.
SPEAKER_02You gotta, you can't just give us it was enchanting, and you gotta give us the sound.
SPEAKER_03Okay, I'll plug a sound in right here. Dude, I got a I got a cool photo too. I about her about fell into the Cedar Creek River trying to get a photo, and I got a cool photo of one too.
SPEAKER_00I'm glad you didn't. Me too. I got a gray cheek thrush when I was out at the dunes. That was one of the ones I added. That's a cool one. And it does have gray cheeks. That's a very cool one. Ironic. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_03I think that's a hard one to get. Facial cheeks?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It was like the whole side of its face was gray. Looked like an old fart out there. Any anything else you guys want to cover?
SPEAKER_03Sarah said she has warbler neck still. Uh she's recovering from warbler neck. She had a good time, but she may may or may not go back next year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I would that was kind of my final question uh to end the show. Was you've guys been there two years in a row? Are you going back next year?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I I told right like once again now that I've now that I've gone to the four we went for four days, like I would I there's no going back to work for me for that week.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think at least because it is like we a couple if we would have stayed two more days, we would have been like peak migration, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which is crazy too, because that's like last year we were there for the second weekend. This we were this time we were there for the first week, the opening week of the migration of the festival at Ohio in Ohio. And I would I think a benefit of staying the whole time is like by Wednesday, everybody from that first weekend's like see you later, and then you just kind of like there's 40,000 less people. You rotate through the asshole.
SPEAKER_02That's the if you can get there, I always prefer going on vacation during the week. Yeah weekdays because it just makes everything.
SPEAKER_00Well, even the second weekend, it's just there's it's just everything kind of flushed out, and it and and it seemed like it was I got way better photos last year than I did this year. Well, like for instance, I came out of it with 19 new species, and mind you, I deleted my life list at the beginning of the year. Last year I had like not near as many birds already on my life list before going, and I added 41 last year. Damn. So I mean that's that was the difference between the weekends. And we spent more time, I mean, we were only here for nine hours there last year. This time we were in the past. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I will say we did watch Alone, the net the survival document.
SPEAKER_00They got me into it, dude. Every night when we were going through our uh life list and our photographs, we turn on Alone. They got me into it. I've never seen an episode. I still haven't finished it either. I I'm like, I have a little bit, a couple episodes left. You should text me what season we're on.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So that will because I don't even know what.
SPEAKER_00I think it's the latest, but I'll let you know. I'll check. All right. Is there anything else, dudes? Go have fun. Next year 2027 is gonna be insane. If you want something a little bit more uh lax, Indiana Dunes Birding Festival is right there for you, and you should go there too.
SPEAKER_02And I think this this season uh of the migration kind of has established uh a little bit of our podcast. I think we're gonna be doing this probably every migration season next time. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So uh well get your ass out and look at them birds. Yeah. Or just get your ass out. Get your ass out. Yeah, thanks for listening, everybody. Goodbye.
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